India has not leveraged Ayurveda treasure trove: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

India has not leveraged the treasure trove of Ayurveda in a scientific way, Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said today.BENGALURU: India has not leveraged the treasure trove of Ayurveda in a scientific way, Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said today.

"One of the big problems is that the outside world views us in a much better way than we view ourselves," she said.

"This year's Nobel Prize, for instance, went to number of scientists in medicine for malaria, river blindness, and one of them was none other than a Professor Youyou Tu who was really not a medical or PhD or any one of those people, but some one who was actually a great proponent of Chinese medicine...." Mazumdar-Shaw said.

"This should open up the opportunity for Ayurveda in a very big way. I think we as a country have not really leveraged the treasure trove of Ayurveda in a scientific way. This I hope will incentivise us and motivate us to to look at our own knowledge of Ayurveda and take it to a different direction", she added.

"That's the trend that we must create from India," she added.

Mazumdar-Shaw, who is also the Chairperson of Karnataka Vision Group on Biotechnology was speaking at an event organised to announce "Bangalore India Bio 2016" which is scheduled to be held from February 9 to 11 2016.

Tu (84) who is chief professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, discovered artemisinin, a drug that has helped significantly reduce the mortality rates of malaria patients.

Noting that agri-biotech can play a very important role in this, Mazumdar-Shaw said "using modern techniques in agri-biotech to actually delve into our Ayurveda and see whether we can amplify some of these very very important aspects of Ayurveda by the use of new technologies and modern technologies of agri-biotechnology".

"This is another area which we must create into a trend because we cannot afford to loose the advantage that we currently have", she added.

Shaw further said, "one of the big challenges and problems in India is the outside world views us in a much better way than we view ourselves, and very often we use our own indigenous opportunities and sacrifice it to others who an see it better than us.

"We need to change that, we need to be able to appreciate our own resources, our own knowledge base and leverage that into value added outcome, because otherwise I think we will constantly find that we are not creating the value that is already there inherently in our system".

The event is expected to have 20 conference sessions addressed by over 110 experts, about 100 exhibitors and will see 3000 plus business visitors. International representation is expected from nearly 15 countries including USA, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium European Union, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, SAARC and other South East Asian Countries.

Stating that this year Bangalore India Bio 2016 is going to be an "exciting and engaging" event, Mazumdar-Shaw said "In India biotechnology is a rapidly growing sector. India is beginning to focus through it Make in India agenda on bio-pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and many many other bio medical devices which are becoming trend setters."

India in the years ahead will play a very important role in the field of biotechnology, she added.

Mazumdar-Shaw said India has become the pharmacy of the world with its very large presence in the generic space and it should aim to emulate this success in the biosimilar space.

She said bio-manufacturing is a big opportunity for India in the 'Make in India' space and biosimilars is the big opportunity in Innovate in India space.

Highlighting India's leadership role in vaccines area, she said it will continue to forge ahead. "This is the big area for the world as we grapple with various kinds of diseases."